Rush Limbaugh slams news coverage of coronavirus racial disparity: “This is how they stop criticism”

Limbaugh slams coverage of disproportionate effect of coronavirus on the Black community

Video file

Citation From the April 8, 2020, edition of Premiere Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show

RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): The latest on the coronavirus, that I guess it's hard to put the stories here in a priority. But something that, you know, we did a morning update, we did a morning update — when was it, yesterday or the day before? It might've run today, on the standing joke, the American media, whenever anything bad happens, “women and minorities hardest hit.” And now, that's kind of changed to, “illegal immigrants hardest hit,” illegal aliens hardest hit.

But there was a — you know the old joke, God is looking at humanity and says, “You know what, I've blown this, this is the biggest mistake I've ever made, I'm going to end the world.” So he calls newspapers to announce he's going to end the world — called USA Today, called The New York Times, called The Wall Street Journal. So he calls these newspapers, and he says, “Hi, it's God here. You've blown it. I'm ending the world in 24 hours, it's over.” So, The New York Times headline, “God says world to end tomorrow — women and minorities hardest hit.” I mean, it was so — that's the joke. USA Today headline is, “We're done.” Wall Street Journal, “God says world to end tomorrow — markets will close early.” That's how the joke goes.

Well, guess what? I've been waiting, with the coronavirus, I have been waiting for the racial component. Silently, silently, awaiting the racial component. And lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, we now have the racial component. Washington Post, “Coronavirus is infecting and killing Black Americans at an alarmingly high rate.”

So now we have a racial component to all of this, which is just going to confound the reporting. See, here's the summary, and this is the way you're going to have to analyze this going forward. “The coronavirus now hits African Americans harder” — harder than illegal aliens, harder than women. It hits African Americans harder than anybody, disproportionate representation.

So now, here's the thing, if you try — if you dare criticize the mobilization to deal with this, you're going to be immediately tagged as a racist. If you disagree with Fauci, if you disagree with Birx, if you disagree with any of the so-called experts advising us to do what — you are are going to be tagged a racist. And this is how they shut people down. This is how they stop criticism. You'll be a heartless S.O.B. You'll be a mean-spirited, extremists, wacko, racist.

It was bound to happen. I'm surprised that it took so long. Here we go. And let me give you a pull quote here from even our esteemed Surgeon General. Name is Jerome Adams, he's 45 years old. Here's the quote from the Washington Post story. “I’ve shared, myself personally, I have high blood pressure, that I have heart disease. I spent a week in intensive care due to a heart condition. I actually have asthma, and I'm pre-diabetic. And so I represent that legacy of growing up poor and Black in America.”

He's the Surgeon General. He's the Surgeon General. He's climbed all the way up to Surgeon General of the United States — but he's now claiming to be unhealthy because of America.

“On Monday, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and hundreds of doctors joined a groupπ“ of Democrat lawmakers, including Senators Fauxcahontas, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris, “in demanding that the federal government release daily race and ethnicity data on coronavirus testing, patients and their health outcomes.”

See, got to prove America's racist. Got to prove that the virus, in fact, may be racist. You know, HIV was the first virus to acquire civil rights. You remember that? It had, HIV — for those of you that missed the program yesterday, we're going to review the way we dealt with the HIV virus and AIDS back in the '80s, compared to the way we're dealing with it today. I did it yesterday, it was a — it's a very teachable moment. But HIV/AIDS was the first virus to have civil rights, it just did. And if you're confused, what I mean about that, I'll explain it as the program unfolds. But now these — here's Fauxcahontas, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris demanding the federal government release daily race and ethnicity data on coronavirus testing, patients, and their health outcomes. So they want a database to prove we are not caring enough about African Americans — that we're not worried enough, that we're not concerned enough, that we're not treating them enough. This is what they want to be able to document, because the race card has now entered the coronavirus story.

Now, “to date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has only released figures by age and gender. Legislators, civic advocates and medical professionals say the information is needed to ensure that African Americans and other people of color have equal access to testing and treatment, and also to help to develop a public health strategery [sic] to protect those who are more vulnerable.”

So, okay, so America is already racist, it's unfair, it's denying treatment, it's denying testing, it's denying — we need to document this. We need to prove this. So in addition to everything else that you are being forced to digest on this every day, you're now going to have to accept the fact that your country is inherently racist and mean-spirited, and unfair, because African Americans are hardest hit, and nobody is going out to test them, nobody is going out to treat them, so forth and so on.